/Film will be recapping episodes for the third season of Breaking Bad, starting with last Sunday’s premiere. A spoiler warning applies after the jump for every recap and the comments section. Meth heads welcome. For previous write-ups on the second and third season of Breaking Bad, click here.

Sunday’s premiere, entitled “No Mas,” was a subdued affair save for multiple homicides and a nightmarish undercurrent that ran throughout. Series creator, Vince Gilligan, didn’t feel the need for a time jump, so we find Walter White worse for wear in the aftermath of season two’s finale. Now sporting a much thicker goatee, it’s the first time in the series that he looks less like a cancer patient than a hardboiled criminal off The Wire. “No Mas” also marks the second ep directed by star Bryan Cranston and he immediately introduces us to a pair of nameless, relentless, and nearly identical thugs, shown above.

With no exposition, in minutes the duo comes to represent the unbelievable, escalating real life wrath of drug cartels in Mexico and these cartels’ common belief in the skull-headed deity of Santa Muerte. If you’re unfamiliar with the chaos happening in the country, check out this recent editorial by journalist Charles Bowden. Something tells us the third season of Breaking Bad will thoroughly address the gruesome “life is cheap” realities of Mexico’s drug trade, after foreshadowing them with the classic tortoise scene last year.